Four ex-NASA engineers on Apple's list of autonomous car software testers
Amidst three Apple employees involved in testing of Apple's self-driving car software stands an ex-NASA researcher who was once tasked to develop an autonomous vehicle to explore one of Jupiter's moons, and three others who worked for JPL.
In a report from The Wall Street Journal, one engineer serving as a test operator is noted as also having worked on automotive supplier Bosch's early efforts to develop a self-driving car, and on making autonomous wheelchairs drive more smoothly.
Other staffers testing the vehicle include three other engineers who worked at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Tasks worked on are detection of 3D objects, and motion planning algorithms.
All of the staff listed in the filing's names have since been redacted, and will not be included in this report at the request of the California Department of Motor Vehicles.
On Friday, a report revealed snippets of Apple's California Department of Motor Vehicles self-driving car application, offering insight into the company's autonomous vehicle project. Apple's full application was revealed a bit later, and incorporates a copy of the testing process it used to certify the six drivers who will pilot three modified 2015 Lexus RX450h SUVs.
Included in the informational packet are instruction sets, training goals and diagrams for each of the following tests: low speed driving, high speed driving, tight U-turns, sudden steering input, sudden acceleration, sudden braking and lane change. Three drivers have worked at Apple's Special Projects Group for two years as hardware and software engineers, according to their LinkedIn profiles.
"Pilots" are expected to pass seven rudimentary tests prior to taking the testbed out for data gathering drives. Tests listed include low speed and high speed driving, as well as drive system intervention including tight U-turns, sudden steering input, sudden acceleration and sudden braking. Drivers also need to take action in the case of faulty software lane change requests called a "conflicting turn signal and action."
Apple expects its test system to be capable of maintaining in-lane speeds of at least 65 miles per hour, change lanes automatically, brake when required and perform other basic functions.
Apple has long been rumored to be working on autonomous vehicle technology under the "Project Titan" aegis. The company reportedly abandoned efforts to create a branded car in late 2016 when former project leader Steve Zadesky left Apple and handed the reins over to senior VP of Hardware Engineering Dan Riccio.
Project Titan was later transferred to longtime executive Bob Mansfield, who subsequently culled hundreds of employees and refocused the program on self-driving software and supporting hardware.
In a report from The Wall Street Journal, one engineer serving as a test operator is noted as also having worked on automotive supplier Bosch's early efforts to develop a self-driving car, and on making autonomous wheelchairs drive more smoothly.
Other staffers testing the vehicle include three other engineers who worked at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Tasks worked on are detection of 3D objects, and motion planning algorithms.
All of the staff listed in the filing's names have since been redacted, and will not be included in this report at the request of the California Department of Motor Vehicles.
On Friday, a report revealed snippets of Apple's California Department of Motor Vehicles self-driving car application, offering insight into the company's autonomous vehicle project. Apple's full application was revealed a bit later, and incorporates a copy of the testing process it used to certify the six drivers who will pilot three modified 2015 Lexus RX450h SUVs.
Included in the informational packet are instruction sets, training goals and diagrams for each of the following tests: low speed driving, high speed driving, tight U-turns, sudden steering input, sudden acceleration, sudden braking and lane change. Three drivers have worked at Apple's Special Projects Group for two years as hardware and software engineers, according to their LinkedIn profiles.
"Pilots" are expected to pass seven rudimentary tests prior to taking the testbed out for data gathering drives. Tests listed include low speed and high speed driving, as well as drive system intervention including tight U-turns, sudden steering input, sudden acceleration and sudden braking. Drivers also need to take action in the case of faulty software lane change requests called a "conflicting turn signal and action."
Apple expects its test system to be capable of maintaining in-lane speeds of at least 65 miles per hour, change lanes automatically, brake when required and perform other basic functions.
Apple has long been rumored to be working on autonomous vehicle technology under the "Project Titan" aegis. The company reportedly abandoned efforts to create a branded car in late 2016 when former project leader Steve Zadesky left Apple and handed the reins over to senior VP of Hardware Engineering Dan Riccio.
Project Titan was later transferred to longtime executive Bob Mansfield, who subsequently culled hundreds of employees and refocused the program on self-driving software and supporting hardware.
Comments
filler
How will a car drive if the OS has so many issues?
So it begs the question "What makes your setup so special"? Do tell.
2) The question still remains if Apple will be making their own automobile or simply creating the architecture and/or HW which others can license and/or buy.
99% of people never ever need to roll back to prior versions. Those that need to can go through the usual motions which are: Step 1) Clone your bootable backup back to your primary drive. Step 2) There is no Step 2.
I remember the cars joke from way back when. "Ironically" this is probably more likely to be accurate than was ever imagined : "6. Apple would make a car powered by the sun, reliable, five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would run on only five per cent of the roads."
I think this airline one is older, I remember it from Usenet circa '93 or so, still funny:
http://www.zyra.org.uk/os-air.htm
Actually exactly my point, as that is really only effective if issues are discovered right away, otherwise one seems into a migration process from a clean install or TM recovery, to retain interstitial data, and do it right (depending on root ID) assuming one has kept the prior installer, which Apple seems to feel isn't worth offering online. I've got some macs that also won't upgrade to the current Safari to 10.1, and there seems no manual download I can find - yet again it seems the Appstore way is the only way, buggy... No mercy.
The only MacOS I remember that were essentially bug free (for me) were 10.4.11 & Snow, and those ran beyond a couple of years in development, but unsupported on new hardware once updated, essentially forcing buyers to the bleeding edge. Would we want that in a car, or timing purchases late in CarOS development for reliability?
Indeed the airline one is funny, especially as I don't fly. Here's a famous Airbus 320 demo flight: www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kHa3WNerjU
...and a linked article on computer assist vs automation approaches Boeing vs Airbus:
http://www.aerospaceamerica.org/Documents/Aerospace America PDFs 2015/July-August 2015/AA_Jul-Aug2015_Feature3_BoeingVsAirbus.pdf
Your argument doesnt hold water. All software has bugs because software developers aren't perfect and complex systems introduce unexpected circumstances. This is not limited to one brand.
They're not JUST using customer to test software. But, having in the pipeline is important. That's why Apple added them to IOS
and since them, the number of major bugs has gone done quite a bit.